Exciting new plans for Lancaster Castle

Plans to create new workshops and classrooms and a new cafe at Lancaster Castle have been submitted to the city council.

The Duchy of Lancaster, which owns the castle, is seeking to demolish the current visitor building, and make a raft of changes to various frontages within the courtyard.

The plans for work at Lancaster Castle

The application seeks to demolish the former visitors building, kitchen annex, storage house and outbuilding, erect a single storey extension to the kitchen building, reinstate three archways and open an additional three archways to the workshops building.

The work will also involve the removal of partition and sections of structural walls in the former male felons building, and hard landscaping works to the castle courtyard area.

The plans which can be found on the city council’s website include a new 60 seat classroom or meeting/function room, with a small kitchen and toilets.

The development will allow existing tours of the castle to be expanded. New workshops would be relocated in the Clock Tower, with a new stone paved terrace, which will provide “a building with a high degree of flexibility and usable outdoor space for events,retail and heritage uses”.

The former hospital would be used as a ticket office and shop on the ground floor. As part of proposals for enhancing the views from within and outside the castle the plans also incorporate returning the wall to the rear of the cafe to its original, lower, height.